ORONO, Maine — The Regional School Unit 26 proposed fiscal year 2014-15 budget adds two teachers, increases stipends and doubles the money paid to the athletic trainer, but will also ask taxpayers to pay $75,000 less for education, the superintendent said.
The public hearing on the budget is 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Orono Middle School gym.
There are changes in the upcoming budget, but the bottom line is basically the same as this year, Superintendent Joanne Harriman said Tuesday morning.
“It didn’t change much,” she said. “We’re looking at a 0.04 percent decrease, which is good. It’s a flat budget.”
The proposed $11.5 million RSU 26 budget for the coming year is decreasing by $5,158, even though two new positions are being added, and coaching and co-curricular stipends are increasing, the superintendent said.
“We’re adding a fifth-grade teacher. We’re going from two fifth-grade teachers to three and we’re adding an alternative teacher for our core program,” Harriman said. “There is currently one and we’re adding one more. Both of those are based on need and numbers.”
The stipend increases are the result of ongoing teacher contract negotiations, she said.
“We’re in a negotiation year, so stipends are a negotiated item,” the superintendent said. “The changes you see referenced in the stipends are a product of those conversations.”
The current teacher contract expires June 30.
The first page of the 19-page budget, which is posted on the school district’s website, shows a $198,332 increase in state subsidy, bringing the total to $2,926,446 for next year, but also a significant decrease in tuition revenues and what locals will pay for education in the coming year.
“We’re getting less money but we’re keeping our budget very flat,” Harriman said. “That means we’ve trimmed in other places. One of the biggest places we’ve trimmed is our contingency fund.”
The budget committee removed $200,000 from the K-12 contingency fund and another $40,000 from the special education contingency fund. Harriman said.
“What allows us to take the contingency out is the carryover fund, the audit fund for the ’12-’13 school year, that we’ve put into a reserve fund,” the superintendent said.
“We have funds there we can add if we have some unanticipated expenses,” she said.
There also are decreases in special education costs based on need, and changes in how some numbers are displayed in the budget. For example, the salaries for superintendent and principals are decreasing but are now reflected in the curriculum coordinator’s and facilities maintenance budget lines that are increased, Harriman said.
“We did rearrange some numbers,” she said. “We also put a significant added chunk of money in for an athletic trainer. It went from [approximately] $12,000 to $21,000. There is some grant money that is going to pay for [the dean of student’s] portion.”
“We’re trying to do more with less,” Harriman said. “We’re being as frugal as possible and doing as much as we can with our taxpayers’ dollars and doing the best we can for our kids.”